Newt goes positive, encounters Orly Taitz

2/13/12 9:38 PM EST

Via POLITICO’s Ginger Gibson on the Newt Gingrich West Coast Tour, the former House speaker says he expects to accomplish yet another political comeback by — switching back to a positive message:

Newt Gingrich said he's backing off his attacks on Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum moving forward, and made little mention of his opponents in his stump speech on Monday.

“I think my ideas are much bolder than Santorum or Romney’s,” Gingrich said when asked why he didn't mention either during his speech. “I think my ideas are much clearer and more specific and I have to focus on communicating those ideas. The two periods I focused on communicating those ideas I ended up No. 1 in Gallup both times. And we’re going back to doing what we did that worked.”

“When we went back and analyzed it I do dramatically better when I focus on the nation’s problems and I focus on the nation’s solutions,” he said. “I don’t do nearly as well when I focus on my competitors. So we took the lesson that has worked twice in the last 3 months.”

And from the “Close Encounters” department of campaign events, Ginger reports:

At an event later in Pasadena, Gingrich got a question from Orly Taitz, the California attorney who fanned the “birther” phenomenon by filing a flurry of federal lawsuits challenging President Obama's legitimacy to hold office.

Taitz laid out her arguments against Obama and told Gingrich it could be a “boost” to his campaign if he picked up the issue.

Gingrich responded largely by ignoring her question, instead outlining a litany of issues he sees facing the country.